Luke opened wider. His maw could have devoured a full-grown man.
And then he did.
Slowly.
The head went in first. I could still hear Harvest’s screaming as he was consumed, inch by inch. And yet—Luke’s body didn’t move. His throat never bulged. His stomach didn’t distend. He wasn’teatingHarvest.
He wasabsorbinghim.
That was the secret. That was why Harvest had kept a distance—he had known Luke could end him at any time. And now, he had.
When Harvest was fully gone, Luke’s eyes met mine, and my heartdropped. I took a step back, every cell in my body shrieking.
His mouth was still unhinged, hanging low like some eldritch thing clawed from the depths of a nightmare. A true monster, the kind mortals couldn’t survive meeting.
And then Iflewbackward.
A scream ripped from my throat as my legs flipped over my head. Wind whipped through my hair, my body twisting violently, completely out of control. I reached foranythingtograb hold of—but there was nothing. Just air. Some kind of magic? I didn’t know. Only that something had flung me hard.
“What’s happening?” Maureen’s voice rang somewhere distant, panicked and small.
With terrifying force, I was thrown onto my knees.
No—forced.
An unseen pressure slammed me down, holding me in place. My arms stretched outward at my sides, unmoving. I tried to drop them, tried to move—anything—but it was no use. I couldn’t do anything but see.
And I saw my siblings—each of them dropped, one by one—forced into the same unnatural pose.
“What is this?” August grunted, twisting his shoulders like he could dislodge himself from the invisible grip.
But none of us could move.
We were being arranged.
It didn’t take long to realize that we were in a perfect circle—our final sibling, Prudence, lowered into place at last.
“You did this?” The veins bulged in Barron’s neck, his voice full of rage.
I turned my head—barely—and saw who he was glaring at.
The Devil.
Luke’s mouth had returned to normal, and he wasn’t looking at Barron at all.
He was staring at me.
“Don’t look at her,” Barron snapped. “Look atme.”
Luke turned slowly. “I know you’re all there. Every one of you.”
And on the last word, he lifted his head—and roared.
The sound shook the ground as Payne dove from the sky, teeth bared, wings slicing through the air. My stomach twisted, not from fear of what Luke—no, the Devil—might do to me, but from a sudden, irrational panic forhim.
And then…for Payne.
In the blink of an eye, the Devil shifted. One second, he stood as Luke—then he was above Payne, a replica of the dragon.
